Exploring Identity: Pen pals & pop culture

Narine and Ruth are working as part of a larger cluster of FLA & ELA Ambassadors. Together, they are exploring the theme of identity and multiculturalism in both the UK and Germany with their classes.

The two groups began by brainstorming what identity, multiculturalism and integration mean to them. Since then, they’ve been busy writing and exchanging pen pal letters and posters with their partner school, discussing and comparing some key aspects of their identity – including pop culture, sports and languages.

With Alasdair (ELA Ambassador) having studied at the same school in which Sina (FLA Ambassador) now teaches, they seemed like the perfect match from the start to run their UK-German project together!

Add to that the fact that they are currently based in Hamburg and Orkney respectively – opposite ends of the North Sea – and what better idea for a project than to compare the regional identity and cultural heritage of these two coastal spots?

They have already created a blog for their project, where they and their students will share posts diving into an analysis of Orcadian and Plattdeutsch dialects. They plan to consider spoken language, as well as the dialect’s prominence in contemporary and past literature, asking what significance it still holds today and – more importantly – “Are these strange tongues really quite so foreign?”

A Christmas parcel exchange

It’s great to see that our Ambassadors’ projects are well under way in time for Christmas – with lovely packages of cards and traditional treats already exchanged between two schools in London and Rottenburg am Neckar.

Thanks to our wonderful Ambassadors, Beth and Simone for getting their bilateral project off to such an exciting start!